


medusa

by goldenthunderstorms



Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: Adrian is like ten years old???, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blind Percy Newton, Felicity is the only one with sense in this household, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Medusa (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Nightmares, Past Rape/Non-con, Percy plays the lyre instead of the violin, Percy's full name is Perseus, Psychological Trauma, Sort Of, Trauma, because I saw opportunity and I seized it, but eternally, yay immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24923578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenthunderstorms/pseuds/goldenthunderstorms
Summary: Monty is used to getting visitors. Ever since he was cursed and left to live in isolation with only Felicity and Adrian—monsters like him—for company, the visitors come like clockwork. They arrive, wanting to kill Monty as part of their quest for glory, but they always fail because Monty's curse caused his gaze to turn people into stone. Monty has accepted that this is his life after the curse: being terrorized by mortals and never being able to face them again. Monty is confused a certain mortal is sent to him by the gods, a mortal that isn't here to kill him and can't be harmed by Monty's curse either. Monty doesn't want anything to do with this mortal, but the gods, and the mortal, seem to have their own ideas.“I promise it doesn’t matter to me how unsightly of a monster you are,” Perseus says lightly.The words catch me so unawares that all I can do is I chuckle politely. This changes things and I’m not sure what to do now. He doesn’t have any intent to kill me, it seems. He can’t see me. But that also means I can’t kill him. So, because the bonds of hospitality still confine me, I say, “Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”
Relationships: Baby Montague | The Goblin & Felicity Montague, Baby Montague | The Goblin & Henry "Monty" Montague, Felicity Montague & Henry "Monty" Montague, Felicity Montague & Percy Newton, Henry "Monty" Montague & Scipio, Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton
Comments: 20
Kudos: 48
Collections: tggtvav week 2020





	medusa

**Author's Note:**

> helloooo my friends  
> this fic is probably the fic that I've been most excited about for tggtvav week. for day 6 I chose the prompt "fairy tale" and I think that a myth counts as a fairy tale alright. the title makes it obvious that I'm basing this fic off of the greek myth of medusa! it doesn't take a lot of prior knowledge of the myth to know what's going on, don't worry. I've sort of combined a few various interpretations of medusa's myth along with my own ideas. I hope you enjoy!!  
> however, TW for past rape/sexual assault. the assault isn't shown "on-screen" nor is it described in graphic detail, but the assault and the trauma that resulted from it are mentioned a lot so please put your mental health first and don't read if this could be triggering for you.

Listen, I didn’t _ask_ to be cursed. I didn’t run up to a god and say _please curse me for all of eternity!_ I was wronged once, and wronged again for _being_ wronged. I felt like that should have been it considering none of this was my fault in the first place. And _yet_ , the gods continue to make a spectacle out of my shame. I try to be a well-behaved monster and keep to myself in my cave, and what do I get? _Heroes._

Well, they aren’t exactly heroes. The men that visit me never return home. But they want to be heroes and think that killing me is the only way to do it. They’re very rude, charging into my home and expecting me to go quietly. So I always have to kill them. At first, I enjoyed it. Maybe I was cursed, but I was ridding the world of men who wanted to take what wasn’t theirs. It was vengeance in a way. But it grows tiresome here; just me, Felicity, and Adrian, having to kill another man every few months like a persistent vermin infestation.

Right now, the three of us are sitting on a ledge outside my cave, watching a figure hiking in the mountains. My next visitor.

Felicity hates visitors. She hates greedy men and especially hates when they disturb us, and then we have to move some of the older men I turned into stone to make room for the new one. Her agitation is visible, her wings spread, feathers ruffled. She keeps braiding and unbraiding her snakes, which she always does when she’s thinking too much. The first time I saw her do that, I thought that it must hurt, but she and the snakes don’t seem to mind. I don’t pretend to understand Felicity’s mannerisms. I’m just glad that, when I was cursed, I was able to keep my hair instead of having it replaced with snakes as Felicity and Adrian’s hair is. 

Felicity and Adrian weren’t cursed, they were born as they are: almost-human beasts, winged, with snakes for hair and serpentine eyes that will turn people into stone. I was cursed to be like them, but I don’t have the snakes or wings (which, frankly, doesn’t upset me). Still, they took me in and allowed me to live like them. They’re the closest thing to family that I have these days.

“Can’t we just kill him now and be done with it?” Felicity finally asks.

“Do you want to anger the gods?” I retort. “We can’t attack a guest, Felicity. He has to attack me first.”

Felicity mutters something about stupid mortal customs, but I ignore her. They may be monsters and free of the laws of the gods, but I know that breaking the bonds of hospitality will still have consequences for me. I’ve been punished enough.

“Maybe this one won’t attack you,” Adrian says. Ever the optimist.

“Oh, yes, maybe he’ll even come bearing fine wine,” Felicity says with a snort.

I roll my eyes at them. “It’s not like either of you even have to confront him.”

“Not that you’d let us,” Felicity points out.

I don’t have any argument for that. It’s true. As frustrating as mortals can be, I never make Felicity and Adrian deal with them. Only me. Felicity and Adrian lived centuries unbothered until I came along. The endless array of mortals is part of my punishment, not theirs.

“You don’t want to deal with mortals,” I assure her.

“You’re right! I don’t!” Felicity’s feathers ruffle so much that one falls off and floats towards me. I bat it away. “I want to kill them!”

Adrian, who is on Felicity’s other side, starts stroking her wings soothingly. Felicity hates being touched but sometimes she makes exceptions for Adrian. “Feli, not all mortals are bad. Monty isn’t bad.”

“Monty isn’t mortal.”

“He was.”

Felicity falls silent, stewing.

“Relax,” I say. “He’ll be gone by nightfall anyway.”

It is almost nightfall by the time the mortal gets to the cave. The closer he gets, he doesn’t look very formidable. He walks slowly, a bit unsteadily, holding a stick. Is he crippled? It won’t be hard to corner a crippled man if his only weapon is a stick.

I pull myself into my alcove near the roof of the cave and wait.

The man’s presence is preceded by…tapping? It sounds like tapping. I think it’s his walking stick, but the taps aren’t steady like a pace. Rather, they’re a bit erratic. When he finally does make it into the cave, he hits one of the petrified men near the mouth of the cave with his stick. It topples and shatters.

“Shit!” says the man. “I hope that wasn’t important.”

I hold back a snort. The people of Athens might have considered him important, but I thought that particular prince was a nuisance. Still, the disruption seems like a good opportunity to start our encounter.

“What mortal dares set foot in my cave?!” I bellow. It’s the same thing I say to all of them.

The man stops. “Um, my name is Perseus. My friends call me Percy.” His voice is soft, almost shy. “Sorry I broke…whatever that was.”

It takes me a moment to recover. Demigods are rarely so well-mannered, especially when they’re about to kill me. Usually, they’ve spotted me by now, but this man is just standing there, staring ahead. “Wh-what brings you to my domain, mortal?”

“I’m not really sure, actually,” Perseus says with a sheepish laugh. “I was sent here.”

“By whom?” I demand.

“The god Scipio,” Perseus answers, which gives me pause again. Is this man Scipio’s son? I could see a resemblance: the same brown skin, dark hair, stature. He’s a young man around my age, which is ideal for a hero’s quest. But Scipio’s children aren’t heroes. Scipio never sends them to slay me. He’s kinder than that, one of the few that believed my side of the story before I was cursed and cast away.

“Your father?” I ask.

“Oh! No! Scipio is not my father. But I asked for guidance and he sent me here.”

_Guidance?_ “Have you angered him?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” Perseus is leaning on his stick now.

Why would anyone send a mortal to me if not for one of us to kill the other? I’m not of their world anymore. I have no business with mortals.

“Do you know who I am?”

“No,” Perseus admits, again sounding embarrassed. “I’m sorry. Scipio led me here.”

“I’m not so sure he did,” I say. I slowly emerge from my alcove.

Perseus turns his head in my direction but doesn’t look at me. I’m not sure whether I should warn him not to or not. “Why’s that?” he asks.

“I’m not…I don’t think I am what you think I am.”

“Well I know that you’re not human,” Perseus says. “What are you? A god?”

That makes me laugh. “No, definitely not that.”

Perseus is silent as if waiting for me to continue.

“Uh, more of a monster.”

“Really? You don’t sound like a monster.”

I don’t _sound_ like a monster? Yes, I can speak, which is more than most monsters can say. But so can Felicity and Adrian and they _are_ decidedly monsters. “Well, I am.”

“I don’t think monsters go around calling themselves monsters,” Perseus says. He still isn’t looking at me. Maybe he does know what I am and he’s just bluffing. Well, I won’t be caught off guard.

“Men call themselves men,” I reply. Perseus finally goes to angle his face toward me and, without thinking, I say, “Wait! Don’t look at me!”

But Perseus isn’t fazed. He just laughs and looks up at me. “Good thing I can’t.” He meets my eyes and…nothing happens. Because he can’t meet my eyes. His irises are pale and cloudy and his gaze unfocused. And it all starts to make sense: the stick, the staring, the way he angled his ears toward me instead of his eyes. He’s _blind_. I didn’t realize blind people were exempt from the effects of my curse.

“Oh,” I say without meaning to. It makes Perseus laugh a little more. “Well, then.”

“I promise it doesn’t matter to me how unsightly of a monster you are,” Perseus says lightly.

The words catch me so unawares that all I can do is I chuckle politely. This changes things and I’m not sure what to do now. He doesn’t have any intent to kill me, it seems. He can’t see me. But that also means I can’t kill _him_. So, because the bonds of hospitality still confine me, I say, “Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”

“What do you mean you _let the mortal stay_?” Felicity demands. Her wings are taking up so much space now that I have to duck when she turns.

“I had to! He didn’t attack me!”

“You could’ve killed him!”

“No, I couldn’t have! He’s blind!”

That makes Felicity pause. “He’s blind? So we can’t petrify him?”

“He’s immune.”

“Fascinating,” Felicity says, suddenly looking much less upset about a mortal staying with us.

“I guess you could call it that.”

“You know you can’t let him stay _forever_.”

I shrug. “He’ll get tired of it and leave. I can’t imagine why Scipio sent him here in the first place.”

“Scipio sent him?” Felicity frowns. “That’s strange. And he’s not here to kill you?”

“I’m not sure he even could, given his blindness.”

Felicity sighs. “The gods getting involved never ends well.”

I nod. I know that all too well.

“We’ll figure out what to do about this in the morning,” Felicity says decisively. I’m not sure what there is to _figure out_ , but I agree.

When I return to my cave, Perseus is asleep on a mat on the floor. He has a small bag of belongings, the mat being one of them. He doesn’t seem to have many, though. Before he slept, he pulled a lyre from the bag, plucked the strings a few times, and put it away again. I wonder why he carries it, if he can actually play it. I wonder a lot of things about Perseus.

So, I take a tunnel to the cave where Felicity, Adrian, and I often keep watch. It’s far enough from mine and their caves for me to do this. I light a small fire and toss a piece of meat into it.

“Alright, Scipio,” I say, “you’d best answer me.” After a few moments, nothing. “Scipio, you bastard—”

I am cut off by a warm laugh. I turn and there Scipio is, smiling at me. Scipio is one of the only gods who will still answer me, not that I call out for the gods often anymore. He’s one of the more merciful gods as the god of the lost, the alone, of those without family. I fell under all of those categories once. “Hello, Monty,” Scipio says.

“Why did you send him here?” I demand.

“Who? Perseus?”

“Yes!” I exclaim. “You know that my business with the mortal world is finished.”

Scipio gives me a knowing look. “I don’t think it is.”

“I think it is,” I say firmly. “There’s nothing left for me in that world and you know it.” When Scipio’s face softens, I snap, “Don’t give me your pity.”

“You always confuse pity with love,” he says gently.

“Don’t play games with me, Scipio.” I stand because, even though Scipio is always tall enough to look down on me, it feels less severe when I’m on my feet. “I don’t understand why you sent the mortal to me. What am I supposed to do for him?”

“Have you considered that it’s not what you do for him, but what you do for each other?”

“Don’t start with that cryptic shit.”

Scipio laughs in earnest. “Isolation has made you brave, Monty.”

“What? You can’t take anything else from me,” I say, which isn’t entirely true. There are still a few things that the gods could do if they wanted to punish me. But Scipio likes me too much to punish me for mouthing off.

“Perhaps that’s the point.”

I consider that for a long moment. “I don’t like what you’re implying, Scip.”

Scipio raises his hands. “I’m not implying anything. You understood that the way you wanted to.” When I give him another _don’t bullshit me_ look, he just laughs again. It would make me angrier if his laugh wasn’t so pleasing.

“Mortal men are nothing but trouble,” I say petulantly. Scipio graciously does not point out that I was mortal once. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice—”

“You weren’t _fooled_ , Monty.”

“And yet my father made a joke out of me.”

The silence that follows is heavy.

“Give Perseus a chance,” Scipio finally says, softly. “He has nowhere else to go.”

“Fine,” I say. “But I don’t know what you expect to happen.”

Scipio shrugs. “I have an idea. We’ll see if I’m right.” I scrutinize Scipio but don’t say anything. Then, in the blink of an eye, he’s gone. The fire goes out.

When I wake up, Adrian is on the floor of my cave, watching Perseus with wide eyes. He reaches out to touch Perseus and I slide out of my alcove.

“Adrian!” I hiss. “Stop that!”

Adrian jerks back, caught in the act. The issue with Adrian is that he often acts like a child. It makes sense, I suppose, because he _is_ a child. While Felicity and I have stopped aging as young adults, Adrian stopped aging on the cusp of adolescence. His body stopped aging so his mind did too. “I wanted to touch the mortal!” he says.

I walk over and scoop Adrian up, setting him a good few feet away from Perseus. “The mortal is my guest and I won’t let you disturb him.”

“Why is he your guest?” Adrian asks.

“Because I had to let him stay.”

“Why?”

“Because he didn’t try to kill me.”

“Why not?’

“He doesn’t know who I am.”

Adrian frowns. “How could he not?”

“He’s blind. Literally blind.”

“Oh,” Adrian says. He watches Perseus for a few minutes. “Are you going to keep him?”

I shrug. “He can leave whenever he wants.”

Just then, Perseus stirs and sits up. “Monty?”

“Right here,” I say. Perseus turns in our direction.

“Hi!” Adrian says.

“This is my younger brother, Adrian,” I explain. 

“There are more of…your kind?” Perseus asks.

“Monty isn’t one of us,” Adrian says before I can answer. “But we act like he is because we like him.”

Perseus frowns.

“Adrian, go find Felicity,” I tell him. “Maybe we can go to the falls today.”

This gets Adrian excited and he takes off for Felicity’s cave.

“He’s gone,” I say. “Sorry about him.” I join Perseus on his mat.

“What did Adrian mean by not one of them? Do you live with different monsters?”

“Well, I’m not…” I trail off. I’m not sure how to explain my situation. “Felicity and Adrian were born monsters. I was…cursed. I’m not exactly one of them, but I’m similar, so they took me in.”

“What did the curse do to you?”

“You’re asking a lot of personal questions.”

“It’s not like I can see for myself.”

He has me there. “Okay, well, the curse made me…unsightly. So much so that my gaze turns people to stone.”

“Oh,” Perseus says. “But it doesn’t work on me?”

“No,” I say.

Perseus doesn’t speak after that. I think the conversation is over and am about to go find something for us to eat when he asks: “Is that why people try to kill you?”

That makes me stop. “Did you hear me talking to Adrian?”

“I’m a light sleeper,” Perseus says sheepishly. “But is that why?”  
“Sort of,” I say. “People know about me and they come here trying to kill me for the glory of it all. That thing you broke yesterday was a former Athenian prince.”

“That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“The gods rarely are,” I say. I stand then because I don’t like where this conversation is going. “I’m going to find breakfast.”

“Can I come?” Perseus asks.

“Are you able?”

Perseus scoffs. “I’m blind, not lame. I did hike my way here, remember?”

_How could I forget?_ “Well, get up, then. We need to find my sister.”

Perseus stands up and follows me. I keep talking so he knows where to go, but not about anything of importance. I tell him what we’ll likely be eating, what Felicity and Adrian are like. When we make it to Felicity’s cave, she’s facing Adrian, hands on her hips. Their snakes are all up and hissing. I think it’s a stand-off but Felicity loses because she turns when we come in.

“Oh, you brought the mortal,” she says.

“Um, hello,” Perseus says.

“Perseus, this is my sister Felicity,” I say. “Mortals need to eat, too,” I remind Felicity, “so what’s for breakfast?”

“Adrian is determined to go to the falls today,” Felicity says, which prompts a whoop from Adrian, “so we can pick fruit along the way.”

“What are the falls?” Perseus asks.

“Some waterfalls down the mountain,” I say. “They’re small and there’s a lake Adrian likes to swim in. Can you swim, Perseus?”

“Not well, but yes.”

Felicity sizes Perseus up. “In that case, we should start hiking.”

Adrian cheers again.

It’s a pleasant walk to the falls. Perseus doesn’t have any trouble walking with his stick as long as we tell him when we make a turn. We all walk, eat, and make conversation and, by the time we reach the falls, Felicity seems to at least tolerate Perseus. I’m not sure if I really want her to but it does make things easier.

We reach the falls and Adrian takes a running start before jumping into the lake. He starts swimming laps, laughing, and calling for us to join him.

“If you want to swim,” I tell Perseus, “Felicity can guide you.”

“You don’t swim?” Perseus asks.

“Monty hates putting his head underwater,” Felicity says.

I roll my eyes. “A man can have his preferences. I’ll be on a warm rock somewhere.”

I do find a warm rock to sit on. I wade my feet in the water and watch as Adrian, Felicity, and Perseus swim. I’ve never been fond of water but they all seem to be enjoying themselves. Adrian has devised a game where they call out to Perseus and he has to find them. It seemed cruel at first but I think they’re all having fun. I lay back on my rock and doze listening to their voices.

I’m pulled from my dozing when there’s splashing and Perseus calls my name. I sit up and lean over the edge of the rock to find him holding onto it.

“Did you need me?” I ask.

“I was just trying to find you.”

“Oh,” I say. Neither of us says anything for a while. Perseus asks me to help him onto my rock and I do. Then I gather up the courage to say, “Can I ask you something, Perseus?”

“Sure,” Perseus says.

“Why did you come here?” I ask. “I mean I know Scipio sent you here but why did you go to him?”

Perseus frowns and I’m about to retract my question, realizing how foolish I was to ask. No one goes to Scipio for help because something _good_ happened to them. But instead, he says: “I had nowhere to go. The people in my village drove me out.”

“Why?” I ask before I can think better of it.

Perseus doesn’t answer at first. I think he will scold me for prying—I really shouldn’t. I hardly know the man. But I’m curious and Scipio’s words made me curioser. But finally, he speaks. “My blindness was seen as a curse because I was born out of wedlock. My father didn’t believe that but when he died, there was no one left who didn’t. I couldn’t go on by myself.”

“So you asked Scipio for guidance,” I say softly. Our situations are nothing alike and yet…I know Perseus’s pain like my own, in a way. I don’t want to consider that, though, having so much in common with him.

“Yes,” Perseus says. “The only reason I made it to your cave was that Scipio basically directed me the entire way. I don’t know _why_ I’m here, but Scipio said it could be good for me.”

_I have an idea. We’ll see if I’m right._

“Well, we don’t do much more than this.”

Perseus considers that. “Does it ever get lonely?” he asks.

“What?”

“Being here, the only human, with just Adrian and Felicity?”

“I’m not human anymore.”

“You sound pretty human to me.”

I scoff. “What does that even _mean_?”

“You’re just…different from them.”

Another silence. What do I say to that? What does that _mean_?

I’m not human. Humans don’t live as long as I have. Humans age. Humans can be around _other humans_. My humanity was stolen from me that day just like everything else was. 

“Can I ask you something now?” Perseus finally says.

“That seems fair,” I say.

“Why were you cursed?”

I should have expected that. It’s the reasonable question to ask. I know that. But that doesn’t stop the fiery anger that bursts inside of me. I don’t know who I’m really angry at, but my immediate instinct is to be angry at Perseus. How dare he ask this of me? How dare he expect me to tell him something I haven’t even told Adrian and Felicity? Wordlessly, I slide off of my rock and into the water. It’s probably cruel to someone who can’t see me leave but maybe he’ll take the hint. I am like Perseus in the fact that I am not a good swimmer. But I would rather go under than tell this total stranger about the worst day of my life. So, I do. I stay under the water for as long as I can, until my chest starts to hurt, reminding me that I am not immortal.

When I resurface, catching my breath, Perseus has retreated on the rock.

A few weeks go by and Perseus stays. I don’t mind having him here, exactly, but I didn’t expect him to stay for so long, especially because I wasn’t the kindest with him his first few days after our conversation at the falls. I think Perseus realized I wasn’t going to talk about my curse because he hasn’t brought it up again. But we’ve gotten along fine since then. He has molded into our tiny, dysfunctional family rather nicely though. Adrian _adores_ him at this point. Felicity doesn’t hate him. I think she might actually like him a little, though of course, she won’t admit to that.

I don’t know how I feel about him.

He’s nice to have around, though. He picks fruit and fishes with us without much complaint. He tells mortal stories that I don’t know. It turns out that he _can_ play that lyre, rather well in fact.

As he plays, Adrian and Felicity are _transfixed_ . I don’t think they’ve ever actually heard music before. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it at all. I think I’ve heard the song that he’s playing before, though I can’t be sure. Oddly, I like watching Perseus play more than I like listening to him. There’s something graceful about the way he plays. Honestly, there’s something graceful in how Perseus does everything. Of course, he’s hesitant when using his walking stick (he doesn’t want to break another person, even though I assured him that it wasn’t a problem), but otherwise, Perseus always seems so _sure_ in his movements, so unlike what I would have expected from a blind man.

I don’t know how he does it. When Adrian asks if he knows other songs, he has one at the ready that he can play flawlessly. His fingers move across the strings easily. He doesn’t even frown in concentration, as I’ve noticed him do before. He looks completely content when playing the lyre. I wonder if he’s been playing all his life.

I realize that I want to know.

“How long have you been playing the lyre, Perseus?” I ask when he finishes his song.

“Oh, for as long as I can remember,” Perseus says. He holds the lyre close to his chest like one would hold a baby.

“How did you learn to play if you can’t see?” Adrian asks.

I’ve expected Perseus to get impatient towards Adrian’s endless questions but I think Perseus is really fond of Adrian. “My father taught me. The lyre was his and he wanted me to learn. He was very patient to teach me.”

Adrian considers this. “Would you teach me?”

“Of course,” Perseus says. Adrian gives a small whoop and Perseus smiles. I don’t think he realizes how beautiful his smile is.

I don’t think I realized it until now. But now that I have, I can’t stop thinking about it.

Perseus is made of music. He sings as we walk. Not loudly, just loud enough that I can hear him. I’m not sure I’m supposed to hear him, but I certainly won’t ask him to stop. The walk to the orchard isn’t a short one and, when conversation fails, Perseus’s singing fills the silence. 

When we finally make it to the orchard, I ask, “Do you have any other talents you’ve been hiding from us?”

Perseus all but jumps. “What?”

“Your singing,” I say. “You’re rather good at it, you know.”

Percy’s cheeks redden. “Oh, thank you,” he says, looking bashful. It’s a common theme with him, always trying to make himself less than what he is. He gets embarrassed when I compliment him, embarrassed when he makes a mistake.

I don’t mention it, though. I set to work collecting the fruit. “Alright, follow me and just hold the basket out,” I tell Perseus.

Perseus and I make quick work picking fruit from the trees. Because there are so many figs, I ask Perseus to help me pick them so we can dump them all in the basket. While we’re picking, Perseus stops.

“Think you could catch one of these in your mouth?” he asks, holding up a fig.

I frown. “How would you throw it at me?”

“Just talk. It’ll be like Adrian’s game at the falls. Your challenge is catching it.”

“Felicity would be upset if we wasted a bunch of figs…” I say, though there’s no weight behind it.

“There’s plenty,” Perseus says, grinning. “And it’s not like Felicity has to know.”

I laugh, surprising both of us. “Alright, go for it.”

Perseus has me take a few steps back and I call out to him a few times before he tosses a fig to me. The first one misses spectacularly and I laugh again. When I move closer, we have a little more luck and I manage to catch a few in my mouth and eat them. I’m pretending not to notice Perseus munching on figs as he goes, too.

We get through at least half of our figs when Perseus says, “We should probably stop.”

“Probably,” I agree.

With a smile, Perseus throws one more fig that I wasn’t prepared for at all and it, miraculously, hits me square in the face. I protest and Perseus laughs.

“If we weren’t wasting dinner, I would be getting revenge on you,” I say.

“I’m sure you would,” Perseus says, still wearing that fiendish smile. “Make it up to me later.” He dumps another handful of figs into the basket. “I think we have enough. The basket is heavy.”

I return to his side. The basket is almost full and it should be enough fruit for the four of us to eat before it all rots. “Looks good enough.”

As we start our walk back, I get the notion that something has shifted between Perseus and I: a small, welcome shift. At least, I think that it’s welcome.

We walk in silence for a time until Perseus breaks it. “Monty?”

“Hmm?”

“I know you won’t talk about your curse,” he says. I shoot him a look that he doesn’t see but he still rushes on. “ _But_ what about your life before the curse? I feel like I still don’t…know you, and I’ve been living in your home for weeks.”

“Don’t give me that much credit. It’s a cave,” I say.

“Still,” Perseus presses on. “Tell me something about yourself.”

“Like what? You’ve seen my life. This is all there is.”

Perseus considers my words. “What about your family? What were they like?”

_Cruel_ is the first word that comes to mind. But I can’t tell Perseus that. Besides, my mother wasn’t awful to me. She deserves a little better than to be written off as cruel. But as time passes, I struggle to remember things about her more and more. My life before the curse was so brief compared to my life after. I hardly remember most of it, other than the curse itself and the events that surrounded it. Finally, I settle on: “Distant.”

“Distant,” Perseus repeats like he isn’t sure he heard me correctly.

“Distant,” I say again.

Perseus frowns. I think he’s waiting for me to go on but I don’t have much more to say.

“Besides,” I say when the silence gets too pressing, “Adrian and Felicity are my family now anyway.”

Perseus smiles a little. “They’re a good family to have.”

“I’m pretty fond of them. Just don’t tell Felicity I said that. It’ll go to her head.”

Perseus laughs then and the tension dissipates. “Your secret is safe with me.”

I laugh too. “Thanks, Perseus.”

“Percy,” he says.

“What?”

“Just…call me Percy?” 

_My name is Perseus. My friends call me Percy._

Despite myself, I smile at that. “Alright, Percy.”

Friends. Just friends. _Friends_ is safe territory. I don’t have to be worried about just being friends.

Despite my own assurances, I don’t sleep well that night. Nightmares keep me awake, starting before I’m even fully asleep. But then I’m trapped in them, reliving that day over and over again. When I finally wake up I’m breathing hard, sweating, fighting back tears, convincing myself that _no, Monty, that was years ago_ and _no, Monty, it won’t happen again._ But it always feels so _real_. It’s like I feel his hands and his breath and his—

No.

After the third nightmare, the worst yet, I come to the conclusion that I won’t be sleeping tonight. I don’t want to risk any more nightmares, so I slide out of my alcove. It’s been so long since I’ve had nightmares, I thought maybe I had gotten over them. Clearly not. I do what I’ve always done and, slipping past the dozens of stone men, sit at the mouth of my cave to let the night winds cool me off. I’m an absolute mess.

I sit there for a few minutes before there’s stirring behind me.

“Monty?” Percy asks.

_Shit._ I turn to face him. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

“Light sleeper,” he reminds me. “I’d wake up if you rolled over too loudly.” After a beat, he asks: “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” I say. “You can go back to sleep.”

Percy doesn’t answer me but he doesn’t move either. He’s still sitting up, the side of his head angled towards me. “Were you having nightmares?”

“Um, yes.”

“You were begging,” he says, “in your sleep.”

“I didn’t realize,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Percy says softly.

“Oh.” I choke on the word. I really expect Percy to go back to bed then, but he stands. He picks up his stick and works his way over to me. “Percy, really, you can go back to sleep.”

He ignores that. He comes closer to me and I tell him to stop just before he reaches the edge of the cave. Slowly, Percy sits next to me. “You’re not going to be able to go back to sleep, are you?”

“Probably not,” I admit.

“Then I’ll stay up with you.”

“I’m probably not good company right now.”

“You’re always good company.”

I don’t know what to say to that. We sit in silence for a time. I don’t really mind having Percy with me. It scares me a bit, how little I mind. Maybe having Percy around isn’t such a good idea. If just being friendly with him provokes old memories…

“Who’s Richard?”

I’m glad that Percy can’t see me. I flinch at the name. “What?”

“In your sleep, you kept talking to someone named Richard.”

“You still ask a lot of personal questions, Perseus.”

That shuts him up. “Sorry.”

Another silence.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say finally. “Richard is probably dead by now anyway.”

Percy frowns. “What do you mean?

“Because of the curse, I’ve lived a lot longer than I was supposed to. Anyone I knew then is probably dead.” I regret saying that as soon as it leaves my mouth. I worry that Percy will start to piece things together.

But he doesn’t. “So you’re…immortal?” he asks.

“Sort of,” I say. “I can still be killed, but I don’t think I’ll die of old age or anything. I haven’t _aged_ in a long time.” 

Percy’s eyes widen. “So…this is it for you? You’re going to live here with Adrian and Felicity for…ever?”

“There isn’t much else I can do.”

Percy considers this. “What would you have done? If you had a normal life?”

“When I was still human?”

“Sure.”

I try to remember. What _had_ I wanted to do? I think my father had really wanted me to become a hero, but I just couldn’t get behind the whole slay-monsters-pillage-women thing. I remember he didn’t approve of what I wanted to do. “I wanted to be an actor.”

“An actor?”

“Yes,” I say. I can’t remember many other details. “What about you? Lyre playing for the rest of your life?”

Percy smiles, though it’s tinged with sadness. “I think I would have. I’m…not really sure what I’ll do now, without my father,” he admits. “I knew he was going to die eventually but he died so soon. I always thought that maybe I could get married, find someone else who loved me enough to keep me from walking into walls but…”

“But what?”

“You know I don’t have much to offer on the marriage front, being a blind bastard and all, so I always hoped I could marry for love?” He scoffs. “It sounds stupid now, especially since that’s never going to happen.”

“How come?”

“Well, I’m not really…interested in women. I’m only interested in men.”

“Oh.” It shouldn’t surprise me, exactly. I knew plenty of men who slept with other men. But most when talking about love, if they talked about it all, considered only women. I like both men and women in both contexts, but I rarely knew other men who felt the same or felt like Percy does. “Me too.”

“Really?”

“Well, I don’t like men exclusively,” I explain. “But I could’ve married one if I met one I liked enough.” I don’t know why I’m telling him this. I shouldn’t be telling him this. He’s going to piece things together. Or he’s going to get…ideas about me that I don’t want anyone to have. Ideas that I’m trying to fight off about him.

“Oh,” is all Percy says.

Another silence descends, but a less tense one. Maybe a contemplative one. I realize that I feel better, steadier, less frayed around the edges. I’m still afraid to go to sleep, but being awake feels a little less taxing.

“Thank you,” I say, “for staying up with me.”

“You’re welcome. Are you going back to sleep?”

“No, but you helped.”

Percy smiles. “I’m glad,” he says. “I could play my lyre, if you want.”

“No, you really should get back to sleep.”

Percy stands. “I’m getting my lyre.” He makes his way back to his mat. I smile despite myself. Percy returns, lyre in hand, and sits next to me again. He starts playing a song that I’ve never heard. It sounds like something one would play to put a child to sleep. We don’t say anything then. Percy plays and I listen. I think this is my favorite song that he’s ever played but I don’t want to say so. I feel like if I speak, I’ll ruin whatever peace we’ve created. So I lay back. The stone floor of the cave isn’t the most comfortable, but I don’t want to move any more than that. With Percy’s playing, I’m able to cast all thoughts of Richard and the nightmares out of my mind. Eventually, I fall into dreamless sleep.

I wake up, still on the floor, but with something under my head. When I sit up, I realize that it’s one of Percy’s tunics. I sit up and look around. Percy is awake, sitting by a fire with Felicity. When Felicity notices that I’ve stirred, she casts a concerned glance my way.

“Good morning,” she says pointedly.

“Uh, morning,” I say. I stand and bring Percy’s tunic to him.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to risk trying to pick you up,” Percy says. “But I figured you would need something for your head.”

“You should’ve just woken me up,” I say, sitting next to him.

“Didn’t want to risk that either.”

Felicity is watching us, frowning. I wish I could ask her what she’s thinking. “Perseus said you were having nightmares?” she says.

I never told Felicity and Adrian about my nightmares. I never told them why I was cursed and they never asked. I was never in a situation where I _had_ to tell them about the nightmares, the flashbacks, the sleepless nights, the days when waking up felt like a Herculean task and listening to what was being said to me felt like trying to trap the winds between my fingers. And though they never really stopped, the days grew much fewer and far between. By then, I didn’t think it was necessary to tell them. What could they have done? It wouldn’t help anyone to tell them about it, but now I don’t have much of a choice except to tell Felicity _something_.

“I was,” I say.

“What about?” Felicity asks. No subtlety, this one.

Felicity is watching me intently. Percy isn’t watching me (for obvious reasons), but the look on his face suggests he is just as interested.

“Nothing of importance,” I say, which isn’t a lie. The events of my curse aren’t important anymore because there’s nothing anyone can do. It won’t help anyone if I talk about it.

It’s obvious that neither of them believes me for a second. But, wisely, they don’t push it.

“Is Adrian still asleep?” I ask.

“He was when I checked last,” Felicity says. She stands. “I’ll check on him again.” 

As soon as she’s gone, Percy speaks. “Does Felicity not know—”

“No,” I say sharply. “No one knows.”

Percy frowns. “Why don’t you tell someone?” he asks gently.

“Why should I? It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It seems like it matters to _you_.”

Of course my curse matters to _me_. But if I could forget about it all, I would. “Just forget about it, Perseus.”

Percy is still frowning like he has every intention to _not_ do that.

I grasp for a change in the subject. “How long do you plan to stay?”

Percy startles. “Am I not welcome?”

“You are,” I assure him. “But surely you don’t want to stay with us longterm. There isn’t much left for me to offer you, you know.”

“Why do you think you have to offer me anything?”

I stop. “What?”

“I like it here. I like being with you, and with Adrian and Felicity. If you want me gone, I’ll go, but…I don’t _want_ to leave.” 

“Oh,” I say. “Then you don’t have to.”

Percy doesn’t say anything to that at first. “Do you want me to leave?” he asks, his voice small.

I don’t know. I don’t know if I want him to _stay_ . But the idea of going back to a life before Percy feels unthinkable. Here is a human being that I won’t kill on sight that doesn’t find me repulsive. It is lonely sometimes. As fond as I am of Adrian and Felicity, sometimes I still don’t feel _like them_. Percy has been a not-unwelcome change to the monotony of my life here.

And yet. What if he isn’t a good change? Things were fine as they were. I was fine. Will I be if Percy stays? Will I be if he leaves?

He’s still waiting for my answer and the look on his face makes something in my chest ache. Damn him.

“Of course not, Percy. You can stay for as long as you want.”

The three of us are lazy that day. We leave our caves for a meadow not far down the mountain. We sit on a blanket that Felicity brought. Felicity and I are sitting and watching as Percy attempts to teach Adrian the basics of playing the lyre. It isn’t going very well, but Percy never loses his patience. Whenever Adrian messes up (which is often), Percy just says “good try” and corrects him, using the same soft voice the entire time. He’s trying to teach Adrian the song he played for me last night.

That fills me with a warm feeling. It’s unfair, really, that Percy is starting to make me feel this way. But it’s so hard to be bothered by it when I’m laying here in the sun as he tries to teach my little brother to play the lyre, all gentle murmurs and soft laughs and freckles. He still doesn’t realize how beautiful that smile of his is. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. I’m just glad he can’t see me watching him. But when I turn, I realize that I’m being watched too.

Felicity is staring at me with that same frown she had this morning, like I’m something she’s desperately trying to figure out. She glances at Percy, then back at me, which makes me nervous.

“What?” I ask.

Felicity shakes her head. “Nothing.” When I narrow my eyes at her, she raises her eyebrows in return, like _I’m_ the one being strange.

Felicity keeps giving me those looks for the rest of the day. I don’t ask her about them until that evening while the two of us carry dinner to Adrian’s cave (where he has Percy held captive for lyre lessons).

“Seriously, Feli, what is it?”

Felicity wrinkles her nose. “I think you’re making trouble for yourself.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re not fooling me, Monty,” she says. “There are reasons we don’t live among mortals.”

“Because we kill them,” I say.

“And because they can be killed,” Felicity says. When she sees that I don’t get it, she goes on. “We’re immortal, Monty. Even mortals like Perseus that we aren’t a threat to…they die, quickly. Mortals don’t last long. They live short, troublesome lives. Keeping a mortal like Perseus around is only going to cause more trouble.”

“Percy hasn’t changed much,” I point out. “Things are the same as they always have been.”

“Are they?”

“I don’t understand.”

She sighs. “I see how you look at him.”

I don’t have anything to say to that.

“What happens when Perseus decides that he’s tired of us?”

“He said he liked it here.”

“Okay, what about when he dies? What then?” When I don’t answer, she presses on. “You’re going to get attached to him and he’s going to die. And you won’t. You could save yourself a lot of heartache if you get rid of your mortal pet sooner rather than later.”

“He’s not my mortal _pet_ ,” I protest.

“ _Please_ ,” Felicity retorts. “He follows you around like a puppy.”

“He’s blind!”

“Being alone with you two is as good as being invisible. I don’t know what he said or did for you, but now it’s like all you see is each other.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? Why does Perseus know more about your past than we do?”

That makes me pull up short. “Are you _jealous_ , Feli?”

“No!” Felicity says, looking like she can’t decide whether she wants to cry or hit me. Probably the latter. Felicity isn’t a crier. “I’m just worried that whatever this is with Perseus is going to end badly.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry so much, Felicity,” I assure her. “There is no _this_ with Perseus. We’re friends, and I’m sure he’ll change his mind about leaving soon.”

Even though I say it with as much certainty as I can muster, Felicity doesn’t look like she believes me. I can’t really blame her. I’m not sure I believe myself either.

I suspected that it would happen eventually. It’s a sick sort of routine. Percy has been here long enough that it was only a matter of time before I had to dispose of an actual hero with him around. But I thought I would have a little more warning when the time came. Instead, I have Adrian swooping into my cave in the middle of the night, shouting about a man who’s very nearly to my cave.

I slide out of my alcove. “Adrian, calm down. I can handle this,” I say.

“What about Perseus?” Adrian asks. “If we walk to mine or Felicity’s cave, he’ll see us!”

“You and Felicity fly back. Perseus stays. He can hide.”

“Hide?” Percy asks. “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Just a visitor,” I say. “I’ll take care of it. _Adrian_ ,” I say, turning back to my brother, “is getting worked up over something not worth getting worked up about. Go,” I tell him. Adrian obediently turns on his heel and leaves. I turn to Percy again, who is just standing on his mat, looking confused. “Listen, I’m going to have you hide down in one of the tunnels. You don’t have to go anywhere, obviously. I just need you to stay where I put you and stay out of sight.”

Percy picks up his walking stick and lets me guide him down one of the tunnels. When he’s far enough down that he should be able to stay out of sight, I return to my alcove. I don’t have to wait long before a man strides in. He’s a bit older than the heroes I usually have to face, maybe in his forties, with dark hair and a beard. He’s wielding a sword. Before I can even go through my usual recitation, he uses that sword and smashes one of the stone men near the mouth of the cave.

“Come out and face me, monster!” he shouts. I almost roll my eyes. He doesn’t even have a shield. What’s his plan of attack, exactly? Swing for my knees? Still, I want to get this over with so I start to slide out of my alcove when another voice cuts in.

“Wait!” Percy calls. He emerges from the tunnel. Did he not understand _stay where I put you and stay out of sight_? Because he isn’t doing either of those things and it might cost him his life. But I don’t intervene yet because if I run out there while the man is still on his guard, Percy might get caught in the crossfire. Still, I don’t know what Percy plans to do. When I glimpse the look on his face, I worry that he doesn’t either. “Wait!” he says again.

The man frowns. “Are you being held captive here?”

Percy frowns too. “What? _Captive_? No!”

The man takes a step back. “Then you’re in league with the beast,” he accuses.

“I think _in league_ would be a bit of a strong statement,” Percy says. He makes a gesture with his walking stick, so small that it’s barely noticeable. 

The man, however, must have assumed it was a threat because, in a matter of seconds, he’s standing close to Percy with his sword under Percy’s chin. “Don’t take another step,” he orders.

Something, either feeling of cold metal under his chin or pure survival instincts, makes Percy freeze and put his hands up. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to speak again.

I suddenly understand what Felicity was telling me about mortal lives two weeks ago with stunning clarity, though probably not in the way she wanted me to. For a few terrifying seconds, my worst fear is that this man will drive his sword through Percy’s throat and I’ll never see that beautiful smile again.

Without thinking, I jump out of my alcove and shove Percy out of the way. Percy stumbles and I hope that he isn’t hurt, but better injured than dead. The man’s eyes widen when he sees me and I don’t give him the chance to look away. We lock eyes and he turns to stone.

It’s not a slow process but it isn’t instantaneous. The person being petrified does realize what’s happening. It starts at their feet and makes its way up. Usually, the person ends up frozen in terror as they realize that they’re turning to stone and can’t do anything about it. But the worst part is the _sounds_ . Aside from the obvious screaming of a person as their insides are being solidified, you can actually _hear_ their insides being solidified. It’s not a pleasant sound, a sort of combination between crackling and the sound of stones rolling against each other. They don’t go quietly. This man _especially_ isn’t going quietly. He shouts things and tries to lunge at me with his sword, but he can’t go anywhere now that his feet are solid. He is finally petrified looking enraged.

Sometimes I almost, _almost_ feel bad for the heroes I kill. It’s such a tragic yet anticlimactic end for them. But then I remember that they broke into my home with the intent to kill me and keep my head as a prize, and I don’t feel bad anymore.

I turn and check on Percy. He’s sitting on the ground looking shaken.

“Are you alright?” I ask. I lean down and try to take his arm to help him up but he flinches away. Hard not to let that sting.

“Yeah,” Percy breathes. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t hurt you when I pushed you, did I?”

“No,” Percy says. He stands, using his stick to support himself. “Just a little stunned.”

“Okay, good,” I say. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“Me? Is this what it’s like all the time for _you_?”

“Usually, it’s not a difficult process though. Looks _can_ kill, in my case.”

Percy is frowning. “But just…to constantly have people here who want you dead?”

“Part of the curse, comes with being a monster,” I say dismissively. “Sorry you had to get dragged into it, though. I…I understand if you reconsider staying with me.”

This takes Percy back. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, you did just almost die because of me.”

“You saved my life!”

“I killed that man. Not a swift death, either.”

“Because he would have killed us!” Percy exclaims, sounding almost incredulous. “Are you really trying to _convince me_ that you’re a monster right now?”

“Do you not think I am?”

At that, Percy’s face softens and he shakes his head. “You really aren’t as monstrous as you want people to think, Monty,” he says, so gently that I want to run in the other direction. Damn him for making me feel things.

“So…you don’t want to leave?”

“Are you kidding me?” Percy laughs like I’ve said something funny. “I’m not going anywhere.”

After breakfast, I enlist Felicity and Adrian to help me move the petrified man and add him to the collection. It’s rather morbid keeping all of the men I’ve petrified by the cave’s mouth, but I always hope at least one hero will be smart enough to see dozens of dead men and think maybe the fight isn’t worth it. It has yet to work, but a monster can dream. I’m just glad Percy doesn’t have to see them every day. If he did, he might not be so firm on his stance that I’m not such a monster.

We push the new addition towards the back of the collection. He’s on the heavier side.

“How did it go with Perseus here this morning?” Felicity asks as we push. Percy, who clearly does not know the subtle art of eavesdropping, perks up.

“Actually, Percy was quite the defender this morning,” I say loudly. Percy’s cheeks go red.

Felicity frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, he confronted my would-be murderer very courageously,” I say, grinning. “He demanded that the man leave me be. They fought viciously!” I’m definitely laying on the theatrics now, pantomiming a brawl. Felicity rolls her eyes.

“ _Monty_ ,” Percy whines, cheeks turning pink. “He’s lying,” he says to Felicity. “I jumped into harm’s way and Monty had to save my life.”

“You made a very valiant stand, though,” I say. Percy snorts.

After the man is dealt with, I send Felicity and Adrian out to fish. (“Percy and I almost lost our lives today. We deserve a break, don’t you think?”) Percy and I don’t do much with our time off, though. We sit at the mouth of the cave that Adrian, Felicity, and I often use as a lookout spot. Our conversations fade in and out, but it’s never silent. Percy has his lyre (he almost never puts it down, really) and strums mindlessly.

“I don’t know that Adrian will ever be able to play as well as you even with perfect vision,” I say.

Percy grimaces. “Adrian is enthusiastic but…it’ll take some time before he gets the hang of it. I think he could with more practice, maybe. It’s not like I’m the best teacher.”

“I think you’re a better teacher than most. You have more patience than most,” I point out.

Percy smiles ruefully. “Well, I guess I have more experience in being patient. It would probably be easier for Adrian to learn if he had a regular teacher, though.”

“Why do you always do that?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“Do what?” Percy asks.

“When I compliment you,” I say. “Like when I was telling Felicity about this morning.”

“You were lying,” Percy points out.

“I was _emphasizing your heroics_ ,” I reply.

“I didn’t do anything _heroic_. If anything, I did something stupid and you had to save me.”

“You tried to stand up for me.”

“That was the decent thing to do.”

“Maybe, but that wasn’t the first time you’ve brushed off my compliments, you know.”

“No?” Percy asks, feigning ignorance.

“Yes! You do it every time,” I say. “Every time I compliment you, you dismiss it. Or you take it, but you take it like I’m handing you a…a toad.”

The side of Percy’s mouth quirks. “A toad?”

“A toad, like I’m handing you something very unpleasant but you’re too kind to turn me away,” I explain. When Percy laughs I say: “It’s my metaphor and I’m sticking with it.”

“Okay, I’m being handed a toad?”

“I’m just saying that you should learn to take compliments more often. You earn them.” Then, because I’m a fool, I add: “Though I do enjoy that little blush of yours when you’re all embarrassed.” 

I duck my head before remembering that Percy can’t see my face. When I look over at him, his face is angled towards me, his cheeks bright red. He’s stammering and for reasons I can’t convey, I’m filled with fondness for him.

I laugh. “Just take the toad, Perce.”

That night, Scipio pays me a visit. Though this time he visits me in a dream so that I don’t have to waste any of our food to talk to him. (He wouldn’t consider it wasting but if I wanted to be mocked in return for food, I would cook for Felicity.) Scipio meets me on a large ship that I’ve never seen before. Sailors bustle about around us but none of them seem to pay us any mind. Scipio stands at the prow and I join him. We stand in silence for a moment, watching the waves.

I’m the one that breaks it. “So?”

“So what?” Scipio asks.

“What’re you planning?”

Scipio laughs. “What makes you think I’m planning anything?”

“Because last time we spoke, you implied that Percy’s visit was some kind of plot for godly entertainment.”

Scipio makes a face. “I would never use you like that.”

I can’t argue with that. “So what do you want?”

“I just wanted to see how things are between you and _Percy_ ,” he says, raising his eyebrows at the nickname.

I ignore that. “You already know.”

“I do, but I want to hear it from you.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What do you want to hear exactly? What was your _idea_?”

“I don’t know why you’re being so defensive about this, Monty. You don’t seem to mind Percy staying with you anymore.”

Again, I don’t have an argument. “I don’t want him to leave,” I admit. “It’s…nice to have another human around, I guess.”

“Yeah? But how does _Percy_ make you feel?”

I frown at the question. “Scipio, I don’t want—”

“Listen, Monty, your sister did make some points but…really, what’s the harm in getting close to Percy?”

“Who says I’m getting close to Percy?” I say. I don’t look at Scipio’s face because we both know _that’s_ bullshit.

Scipio leans against the prow and turns to look at me. “And who says that’s a bad thing?”

I make a face at him but I don’t have a reason. Not really. Percy hasn’t given me any reason to mistrust him or be afraid of him, but that doesn’t stop me from being afraid. Maybe Scipio senses that because he slowly puts a hand on my arm.

“I’m not saying I _expect_ something out of you and Percy. But if it does…”

“Would that really be good for anyone, Scipio?”

“Would it be good for anyone if you pushed Percy away solely because you were afraid of what _might_ happen?” Scipio counters. “You’re scared, I know. You have every right to be. If Percy gets out of line, kick him out on his ass. But I think he cares for you, Monty.”

_Cares_ for me? Sure, Percy always says those nice things. Maybe he did stay up with me when my nightmares kept me awake. He did try to defend me. But I’m not sure that means anything for _me_ . Percy teaches Adrian the lyre without complaint. He tries to engage with Felicity even when she’s hostile towards him sometimes. Percy is just a _good person_. He’s kind. That doesn’t mean any kindness that he shows me is affection. “He can’t,” I say.

“Why?” Scipio asks like he genuinely wants to know.

“Because I’m—” I gesture to myself vaguely— “cursed.”

“Percy doesn’t seem to mind that.”

“Percy doesn’t know what happened.”

“And if he did? Would he mind then?”

_Yes_ , I think instantly. _Of course,_ Percy would care about my greatest shame. But after all that he’s told me, I’m not so sure. “He won’t know,” I say instead.

“Monty,” Scipio chides gently. “Don’t you think that it’s time you told someone? It might help to get it off of your chest.”

I shake my head. “There’s no need to drag Percy into any of it. I can bear it.”

“You don’t have to bear it all by yourself, though. I didn’t just send Percy to you for his benefit.”

“What do you mean?” I stare at him.

Scipio shrugs. “It wouldn’t do much good for me to _tell_ you what to do.”

“You’re a god! Aren’t you supposed to give humans guidance?”

Scipio gives me a look. “You consider yourself human now?”

For a few minutes, I can’t find words to respond to that.

Then, Scipio smiles. “I think you’re doing fine without my help.”

“I don’t know what I’m _doing_ , Scip!” I protest.

Scipio just shakes his head, still smiling.

That next day, I can’t stop thinking about what Scipio said. I wish he would just give me some direct answers. But I also can’t stop thinking about what he said about Percy _caring_ for me. And then I think about what Felicity said about seeing the way that Percy looks at me. And I find myself wishing that Percy could see, if only to see how he would look at me. Until I think of hungry eyes in the dark and I stop wanting that.

I need to get my head on straight. But that’s hard to do with Percy _touching my face_.

I’m not totally sure how we got here, to be honest. Percy and I were sitting by the fire, talking, and somehow my curse got brought up (again) and Percy said that he was sure I wasn’t that unsightly. I said he couldn’t possibly know and that led to Percy feeling my facial features. His touch is so light and hesitant that I can hardly feel it but there’s still something frighteningly intimate about Percy’s face being this close to my own, his fingers tracing my skin, watching every reaction play across his features. I’m not sure Percy realizes that his face is so emotive but I would never point it out to him, unless he starts looking disgusted by me. Right now, though, he looks almost in awe. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

Then his hand comes to the right side of my face and he stops, frowning. I flinch away. “I should have warned you about those.”

“What…are they?” Percy asks.

“Scales,” I say. “Like a snake’s. It was…part of my curse. A fun little side effect.”

I know, from the look on Percy’s face, what he’s going to ask just before he does. “Monty? Can I ask…?”

“You want to know why I got cursed,” I say.

“Yes,” Percy says. “Only if you’re ready to talk about it, though.”

_You don’t have to bear it all by yourself, though. I didn’t just send Percy to you for his benefit._

Percy takes my silence as a rejection. He pulls his hands away from my face. “I’m sorry, Monty, I shouldn’t have asked. I know that if you wouldn’t even tell Felicity, you would never want to tell me. I shouldn’t expect you to trust me with something so personal.”

But he’s wrong. I never told Felicity or Adrian because when I first met them, the wounds were too fresh. And I wasn’t ready. And I didn’t expect Adrian—a child—or Felicity—a monster with so little understanding for humans—to understand how I felt or be able to help. There was no sense of relief in the idea of telling them. It only felt like burdening them and myself. But telling Percy feels different. Percy understands me in a way that Adrian and Felicity don’t.

Maybe it is the humanity left in me.

Or maybe I just want someone to treat the wound.

“I think I want to,” I say. My voice breaks on the last word. Even though Percy isn’t actually watching me, it feels like his gaze is boring into me. I know he means to be comforting when he touches my leg but I startle so badly that he pointedly pulls his hands away and folds them in his lap. He waits. I try to work out the best way to explain what happened and decide to just start from the beginning of the entire mess that was my life. “My father was a god.”

Percy’s eyes widen.

“Henry,” I say. “He was never kind to me, really, but I visited his temple often. And there was a man—no, you know who he is. It was Richard. Richard…got the idea that I was interested in him. It may have been my fault for making him think that, but I tried to tell him that I wasn’t. I guess…” I choke on my words. I wonder what I could have done differently. Maybe if I had been more assertive about not wanting anything to do with Richard, or never even flirted with him in the first place, things never would have transpired as they did. “I guess whatever I said didn’t matter because he…” I trail off, trying to find the right word. _Attacked_ seems too tame somehow. Maybe if I had just _fought harder_ . Or maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t fought at all. “He cornered me in my father’s temple and…and _violated_ me.” It still doesn’t feel like a big enough word to describe what happened, what left a gaping wound inside of me that nothing is going to heal, but it’s the word that I settle on.

“Oh, Monty,” Percy says. The pity in his voice makes me want to stop, to take it all back. But I can’t. I’ve never told anyone about this, and Richard has been tormenting me for so long. Maybe telling Percy isn’t going to help anything, but I realize that I’ve wanted to tell someone for a long time. Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop.

“My father got angry with me for disrespecting his temple. I told him that I hadn’t wanted it but he didn’t care. He said…he said it was my fault, that I shouldn’t have ‘enticed’ Richard and made him want me. So, he punished me and made sure that no one could ever want me again.”

“What do you mean?” Percy asks softly.

“Well, the curse. I can’t even look at anyone anymore and he made sure no one would want to look at me. He hit me when he cursed me, and the scales appeared there.” I run my own hand over the scales now, feeling some kind of detachment. “You know he didn’t even tell me what the curse did? He let me find out for myself.”

Percy looks absolutely horrified now, but I can’t make myself stop. It’s like the dam has been broken and there’s no going back. I realize that I want someone else to know. I want someone else to feel enraged on my behalf because I’m so tired of doing it myself.

“I must have made quite a bit of noise when I discovered the scales because then my mother came rushing in, asking what was wrong, and I looked at her and…” I trail off. If I had been standing, I might have collapsed under the sheer weight of the grief that strikes me, sudden and strong like a wave. I hadn’t been incredibly close to my mother, but she didn’t deserve a fate like that. Sometimes I wonder if my father had meant it to happen that way.

“That’s awful,” Percy breathes.

“I didn’t know,” I say. “I didn’t mean to!” Tears spring from my eyes. A man shouldn’t be able to feel so many emotions in such quick succession.

“No, Monty, I know,” Percy assures me. “That’s just…awful that it happened.”

I nod even though he can’t see me. The tears are really going now. 

“You know it’s not your fault?” he says. When I don’t respond, he says it again as a statement. “It’s not your fault, Monty. None of it was your fault.”

I make an awful, disgusting sound between a sob and a whimper. Percy isn’t fazed. He lifts his hands but hesitates.

“What can I do?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say, though it comes out as more of a gasp. “There isn’t anything anyone can do anymore.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Percy says gently. “What can I do for _you_? Right now?”

I choke on another sob. I don’t bother wiping away my tears since Percy can’t see me, but I would at least like to maintain some sort of hold on my dignity. But all those hopes are gone when I let myself speak. “Just…stay?” I request, grimacing at how much I sound like a child.

“You didn’t even have to ask,” Percy murmurs. After getting my okay, he wraps a gentle arm around my shoulders and lets me hide my face in his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Eventually, Percy falls asleep there with me on the floor. I’m afraid to sleep. I’ve been trying to avoid the actual memories while I talk to Percy, but I know that once I fall asleep, there’s nothing I can do. So I sit there, the firepit cold, Percy’s head in my lap, being haunted by memories that I would do anything to let go of. The stone men cast shadows against the back wall.

I want them gone. I want them gone more than anything else. I want these men, these statues, these monuments to my curse and the monster that I’ve become to disappear. But they can’t just come back to life and leave. I realize, with a sudden burst of energy, that I will have to get rid of them myself.

I ease Percy’s head off of my lap and stand up. I study the stone men for a few minutes. There are so many of them that have accumulated over the years. I decide that it will probably be easiest to start with those closest to the mouth of the cave that I can just push off the edge. I usually can’t do this without Felicity’s—and sometimes even Adrian’s—help, but I want it to be done _now_.

I have two men set up by the mouth of the cave like sentries. I shove them off first. They scrape against the ground and they hit the ground with loud crashes. It’s gratifying.

“Monty?!”

Damnit. I woke Percy. I don’t stop, though. I try to push another statue off but this one is heavier and I can’t push it far enough for gravity to pull it down. Then, there are frantic hands on my shoulders. I nearly jump two feet into the air, turning to see that the frantic hands belong to an even more frantic Percy.

“Monty!” he says again. “What are you doing?!”

“What does it look like I’m doing?!” I snap. Percy doesn’t say anything, reminding me that he can’t look at anything. “I’m pushing those damned statues off of the cliff!”

“Right now?” Percy asks. “Monty, it’s the middle of the night.”

I don’t know how he knows that but I don’t bother asking. “I want them gone!” I insist.

“Okay,” Percy mutters, frowning like he’s trying to figure something out. “But you can’t possibly move them all on your own, and I can’t help you.”

“Sure I can!” I break from Percy’s tentative grip and try to push the statue again. As hard as I try, I can’t push it far enough. I get frustrated and hit the statue, which really isn’t my smartest move. The pain shoots up my arm and I cry out, swearing. All of the energy drains out of me and suddenly I’m crying again. I don’t know if it’s from the pain, the emotions, or both, but I start bawling.

Percy reaches for me again and I let him wrap an arm around my shoulders. He uses his walking stick to make his way to his mat. He has me sit and I slump over, pressing my face into his pillow. I’m such a mess. I’m glad he can’t see me, though the sounds I’m making aren’t much better.

“Monty,” he says again. He pities me, I can hear it. I want to scream at him. I don’t want his pity. I don’t want him to watch me reach this breaking point I didn’t even know I had.

_You always confuse pity with love_.

I’m too tired for thoughts like _that_.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Percy asks.

“My hand,” I say. “I…hit one of the statues.”

Before Percy can say anything, Felicity swoops in with perfect timing. I sit up.

“Monty? Were you—” She stops when she sees me sitting on Percy’s mat, crying my eyes out, cradling my hand. I can’t meet her eyes. “What’s wrong with your hand?” she asks. She kneels in front of me and takes my hand. She presses her fingers against it and I wince.

“I think it’s broken,” I say. 

Felicity scoffs. “It’s not broken.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Hush,” Felicity says. She presses on my hand a few more times, ignoring my protesting. “It’s not broken, just be careful with it for a bit.” She stands. “What _happened_? Were you pushing those off?” She points at the statues.

“Yes,” I say.

“ _Why_?”

I don’t say anything. I wipe at my cheeks, ignoring the pain it causes.

Percy is staring at the ground, looking troubled. Then, he softly says: “Monty, maybe you should tell her.”

Felicity glances between us. Her frown deepens, equal parts confused and concerned. “Tell me _what_?”

I just shake my head. I keep shaking my head. I can’t find the words anymore. I don’t know why it was so easy—relatively speaking—to tell Percy but so _hard_ to tell Felicity. Felicity and I just don’t talk about things like this. We know that we care for each other. She’s my sister. But that doesn’t mean we _say_ it. Feelings aren’t something we talk about like that. Feelings like anger or annoyance, maybe. But this is something else; feelings I don’t even know Felicity knows how to feel.

Felicity, looking very much like she wants to do anything else, sits on the ground with me. She pulls her knees up to her chest and folds back her wings. Even her snakes settle. She sighs. “I’m listening,” she says without any demand in her voice, “if you want to.”

I stare at her few a few moments, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. Felicity looks so unlike herself.

When she notices me looking, she ruffles her feathers. That’s more like her. “Well?”

I swipe at my face again. “Percy’s talking about my…my curse.”

“Oh,” Felicity says.

“I’ve never told anyone what happened until tonight.”

Felicity frowns. I think she’s about to say something but she stops herself and nods for me to continue.

I want to keep things simpler with her than I did with Percy. But all of it is so very not-simple. “I was cursed for disrespecting a temple.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” Percy blurts, then puts a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’ll just…” He trails off, gestures to the mouth of the cave, and leaves us.

Felicity and I look at each other. “Was it?” she asks.

“What?”

“Was it your fault?”

“I…don’t know, honestly. I like to think it wasn’t, but who knows.” I shrug. I’m trying so hard to be nonchalant, to not burst into tears again. I think Felicity can tell but I really am clinging to scraps of dignity at this point. “I didn’t vandalize a temple or something. I’m not that foolish.”

The brief twitch of her mouth tells me she thinks otherwise but she doesn’t comment.

“But I did something,” I say. “Sort of. There was a man that I knew who had an interest in me but…I didn’t have any in him. I told him so but he didn’t take kindly to that.” I pause, trying to figure out how to explain this to Felicity. I don’t even know if she knows what I’m talking about. But she nods like it makes sense to her, so I continue. “He wanted me to…sleep with him.” Another thing that I’m unsure if Felicity knows the meaning of, but she’s still nodding. “I said no but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He…” Again, I grapple for that word. “He forced himself on me.” It still doesn’t feel sufficient, but it feels understandable. 

Felicity’s eyes widen.

“We were in a temple when it happened. My father’s temple,” I say.

“You’re a demigod?”

“I was. I’m not sure it counts anymore given the curse.” I shrug. “But at the time it did so my father was especially angry with me for disrespecting his temple. So he cursed me.”

Felicity gapes. “That’s cruel!” she exclaims. “Your own father punishing you for being attacked!”

“He didn’t see it that way. He said it had been my fault for ‘enticing’ the man and it was my fault that his temple had been disrespected.” Felicity doesn’t say anything, so I add: “I don’t expect you to understand, I just—”

“I do.”

I stop. “What?”

“I understand,” Felicity says. “Nothing like that has ever happened to me,” she rushes out for I must look shocked. “But I know what… _happened_ and I know that it has effects on the victims.”

_I_ didn’t even know that. I guess I always thought it was just me being dramatic.

“How do you know all of this?” I ask. “How did you know about my hand and…about _this_?” 

“I read,” Felicity says.

“You what?”

“I read,” she says again, “books. I visit cities and take them. No one ever sees me but…I’ve been doing it for centuries.”

I stare at her.

Felicity looks bashful now, but she continues. “I always liked them and I liked reading about medicine, especially. When you got here I started reading more about…mortals and their lives. You knew so much that I didn’t and I wanted to know. And I thought that maybe…maybe it would let me understand you better.”

“Feli,” I say, a little speechless and more than a little touched. “I had no idea.”

“No, I didn’t want to tell you and have you get all…teary.” She gestures at my face. I realize I am tearing up again and blink them back. Though I still resent the accusation because it’s not like I’m a sobbing mess _every_ night. Felicity gives me a few minutes to compose myself. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Monty,” she finally says. “Is that what the nightmares were about?”

I nod.

Felicity nods too. “Well, I really am sorry. You didn’t deserve that, any of it.”

I shrug. “Well, you know,” I say nonchalantly. I don’t know what to follow that with.

For a few minutes, neither of us say anything. It’s strange to have this all out in the open. Not as terrifying as I always thought it would be, though definitely not easy.

“So you were shoving all those statues off because of this?” Felicity asks.

“Sort of,” I say. It sounds so ridiculous when put like that. “I just…wanted them gone. They feel like reminders. But I couldn’t push them and I hit one because I’m a fool and now…” I lift my injured hand. 

Felicity mulls that over. “Do you still really want to get rid of them?”

“Yes,” I say immediately.

“Okay,” she says. “Tomorrow. Adrian and I will help you so that you don’t hurt yourself again.”

“Wait,” I say. “Let’s not tell Adrian about this. He’s so…”

Felicity nods. It’s a strange relief to have this known between Felicity and I, but I can’t tell Adrian. He really is just a child.

Felicity stands. “I’m glad you finally told me,” she says stiffly. “But I think we can go back to avoiding emotional subjects for a few decades.”

I laugh softly. “I agree.”

The ghost of a smile passes over Felicity’s face. “I’m going back to bed. I trust that Perseus can watch over you for the night.” Before I can say whether I even _want_ Percy watching over me, she spreads her wings. “Goodnight.” With that, she leaves.

Seconds later, Percy returns. “Monty?”

“Still here,” I say.

He sits beside me on his mat. Our shoulders press together but neither of us makes a move to change that. “How do you feel?” Percy asks.

“Tired.”

He laughs. “I’m sure.” He reaches behind me and pulls a blanket from his bag and drapes it haphazardly around me. I pull it around myself.

“Thank you,” I say.

“What for?” Percy asks.

“Just…all of it. I don’t know that I ever would have told anyone if not for you.”

Percy smiles a little. “I’m glad I could help but you didn’t need me. I think you would have gotten there one day.” 

I shrug. It’s a pointless argument to have, so I let it go. I’m exhausted. Again, too many emotions for a man to feel in one night.

“You can sleep down here if you want to,” Percy says.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Percy—”

“Just go to bed.” Percy bumps my shoulder with his.

I really can’t argue much. Climbing into my alcove feels too daunting. “Are you sure?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Percy insists. He nudges me again with a little more force, so I lay down. Percy’s mat is big enough that I can lay down and he can still sit on the edge of it. I expect it to be hard to sleep with Percy in such close vicinity, but exhaustion wins out.

The next day, Adrian, Felicity, and I set to work pushing statues off of the cliffs. It’s strenuous but after a time, it’s almost fun. Adrian makes something of a game out of it. Whoever’s statue gets the most demolished after being pushed off wins. It’s definitely a little morbid, but we have to enjoy ourselves somehow.

Percy isn’t able to help for obvious reasons but he sits out of the way and calls encouragement. When a statue makes a particularly loud crash, he cheers. After a few hours of this, all of the statues are gone. The cave feels a lot larger without all of them there.

Adrian is laying on the ground, panting. He didn’t ask why we were getting rid of the statues but he was more than happy to help. “Can we go to the falls?”

“You want us to hike all the way to the falls? After all that?” I ask.

“It’s not that far!” Adrian protests. “And it’s hot here. The falls would be cooler.”

“He has a point,” Percy says.

“You don’t get a vote,” Felicity says. “You didn’t help.”

“I did! I offered moral support!”

Felicity rolls her eyes.

“Please, Feli?” Adrian asks.

“Fine,” Felicity says with very little deliberation. “We can go, but we’re not walking back until sunset.” Adrian whoops.

“I don’t know why you thought he’d complain about that,” I say.

We pack food and Percy packs his lyre to bring to the falls. When we get there, Adrian does his usual run and dive into the lake. I sit on my rock again. Felicity joins Adrian in the water, but Percy comes to sit by me. He waits until Felicity and Adrian are at the other end of the lake.

“No more nightmares last night?” he asks.

“None,” I say. It’s true and it surprised me. I was probably too tired for nightmares.

Percy smiles a little. “I’m glad,” he says. “How are you feeling after last night?”

“I’ve tried not to think about it much, to be honest. But I feel…fine, I guess. Nothing spectacular.” It’s strange how some days the wound feels fresh and some days it feels like everything happened centuries ago. I like the days when it feels like ancient history, like something I can put behind me. Today is almost one of those days.

“How did Felicity take it?”

“Fine,” I say. “She was surprisingly understanding about it all.”

“She is your sister,” Percy points out.

“She is,” I say but don’t continue. I lean my head against Percy’s shoulder. For a while, neither of us says anything. I watch Adrian chase Felicity. He’s a better swimmer than she is so he catches her easily, grabbing her ankle and yanking her under the water. He darts away then but Felicity recovers quickly and starts chasing him. We feel most like a family at times like these. I guess that includes Percy now.

I’m not mad about it.

I don’t see much of Percy for the next week or so. Adrian keeps stealing him away for lyre lessons. Usually, he steals Percy away after breakfast but today he bursts into my cave before I’m even properly awake.

“Hi Monty, I’m taking Percy!” he says.

Percy barely has time to stand and grab his walking stick. Adrian grabs his lyre, Percy’s hand, and pulls him away.

Whatever they’re doing, it must be important. After a few hours, Felicity and I go to check on them and Adrian won’t let us into his cave. Percy comes out to assure us that they aren’t doing anything dangerous, so we leave them be. When it’s almost sundown, Adrian and Percy come rushing (well, Adrian is rushing while dragging Percy along) into my cave. 

“Monty! Feli! Come on!” Adrian says. He’s practically bouncing in place.

“What’s going on?” Felicity asks.

“Just follow me!” Adrian says, then takes off running. Percy stumbles, Adrian nearly pulling him over, and I rush to take his hand.

“Where is he taking us?” I ask.

“His cave,” Percy says. He smiles. “He has a surprise for you.”

Felicity and I exchange confused glances, but we make our way to Adrian’s cave. Adrian is far ahead of us with his running start and he beats us there. When we do get there, we find that Adrian’s cave has been transformed. Well, not transformed exactly. But there are flowers strung throughout and three flat rocks sitting in front of a small fire. Adrian is nowhere to be seen.

“What’s going on?” Felicity asks.

“Sit down!” Adrian says from somewhere in the shadows. Obediently, we all sit on the rocks.

I look over at Percy. “Do you know what this is about?”

Percy grins. “Well, I may have helped him set it up,” he says, but doesn’t say any more.

After a few minutes of waiting, Adrian jumps into the light holding _Percy’s lyre._

“Surprise!” Adrian says. “It’s a concert!”

“How do you even know what that is?” I ask.

“Percy told me about it.”

Percy’s grin turns sheepish. “Okay, this may have been my idea.”

“Percy said I could do a concert to show you all the lyre songs that I learned!”

“I was joking at the time but he got so excited about it,” Percy says to me. “I couldn’t tell him no.”

I smile. “He does have that power, doesn’t he?”

Adrian has his own rock near the fire that he sits on. After plucking experimentally at a few of the lyre strings, he starts to play. And he’s _good_. He gets through an entire song without messing up. Felicity and I start to praise him but he cuts us off saying that he has more, so we sit again. He does have more. Adrian plays three more songs on the lyre almost perfectly. The last song that he plays is the song Percy played for me after my nightmares.

Of course, Adrian is no contender for Percy. But he really _learned_. Percy taught him and it worked. It all surprises me a bit more than I would like to admit. I’m just so proud of both of them, which also catches me by surprise.

When Adrian is done, he flings his arms out, nearly tossing Percy’s poor lyre into the fire. Felicity manages to jump up and save it, quickly returning it to Percy.

“What did you think?” Adrian asks.

“Aside from the part where you almost killed Perseus’s lyre?” I say. “I think you did great.”

Felicity nods. Percy, who is now clutching his lyre close to his chest, says, “He can be a fast learner when he wants to be.”

I bump his shoulder with mine. “Well, you did a great job teaching him, too.”

“I didn’t really—” Percy starts, then stops himself. He grins. “You know what? I’ll take the toad.”

That makes me start laughing. Percy starts laughing too. I know we look like idiots because Felicity and Adrian are staring at us like we are, but I don’t mind it.

I poke at the fire with a stick. It’s going to go out soon, which is probably for the best because Percy and I should have gone to bed hours ago. But I don’t want to sleep yet and even though Percy keeps yawning, he insists that he doesn’t either. We haven’t been doing anything important, just sitting by the fire and talking. But as the night goes on, Percy seems to get more and more skittish and say less. Eventually, I mention Scipio and that seems to make him even _more_ cagey. I can’t handle it anymore.

“Why are you acting so strange?” I ask.

“I’m not,” Percy says quickly.

“You’re a horrible liar, you know that?”

Percy makes a face. “Fine, there’s something that I need to tell you.”

“Okay,” I say haltingly. My brain starts going through every possible thing Percy could have to tell me right now, but there isn’t much I can think of, which just makes me more nervous.

“I think I figured out why Scipio sent me here.”

“Really?” I ask. I haven’t even figured it out myself. I don’t think I have, anyway.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Percy says. “After my father died, I felt really lost, like there wasn’t a place for me, literally, but also…also like I didn’t have anyone, if that makes any sense.”

“It does,” I say softly, remembering how I felt after I had just been cursed and lost my mother. Like I had lost my home and anyone who would ever care for me in one full swing.

“So when I went to Scipio, I asked him to find me a place.” Percy fidgets, mindlessly plucking the strings of his lyre. “Not just somewhere to live but…a place where I felt _wanted_ , not just tolerated. And at first, I wasn’t sure if Scipio would be able to give me that but…I think you’re my place, Monty.”

I stare at him. “What are you saying?”

Percy takes a deep breath before he continues. At the same time, I feel all of my breath leave my lungs. “I’m saying that I think I’m in love with you.”

Silence. I’m so glad that Percy can’t look at my face because I have no idea what it looks like right now. Of all things for Percy to say, I hadn’t been expecting _that_ . “You can’t,” I manage, sounding more disbelieving than assertive. But he can’t _love_ me. Caring for me was one thing, but I’m not supposed to even be wanted, let alone _loved_.

“What? Why?” Percy flinches away like I’ve struck him.

“You can’t—” I say again, stammering as I search for words. “I don’t— I’m not—”

“You don’t feel the same way,” Percy says evenly.

“That’s not what I’m trying to say, Perce!”

“No, I get it. It’s fine. I shouldn’t have presumed.” Percy stands, grabbing his walking stick. “I’m going to bed.”

I stand up too. “Percy, wait—”

“Goodnight, Monty,” he says, going to his mat and laying down. The worst part is that he doesn’t even seem angry at me. He just sounds tired.

“Percy?”

No answer. He’s going to ignore me. Okay. Isn’t this what I’ve wanted all along? Isn’t this what’s best? I don’t _want_ Percy to be attached to me. It’s not safe. It’s not possible. But it happened anyway. So now all I can do is make him see what a terrible idea that is, no matter how much it hurts when he turns his back on me.

In the morning, Percy is gone. Not _gone_ gone, his things are still here. But he isn’t in the cave, which never happens. 

“Percy?” I call. I get no answer, so he isn’t in the cave or down any of the tunnels. I don’t see him anywhere when I get to the mouth of the cave either. “Percy?!”

“Monty!” I hear my name. But it isn’t Percy saying it. It’s Felicity. She’s in the air, flying towards me.

“Have you seen Perseus?” I ask.

Felicity lands in front of me. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What?”

“Sit,” Felicity says. She sits at the edge and gestures for me to sit with her. I do.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

She shakes her head. “No, nothing happened, except…” She trails off. For a few minutes, we’re silent as I wait for Felicity to figure out what she wants to say. Finally, she just blurts out: “I know what Perseus said to you last night.”

“What? Were you eavesdropping on us?” I demand.

“No!” Felicity says. “But I ran into Percy earlier and he seemed upset so I asked him why and it all just sort of…spilled out of him. I don’t think he meant to tell me but he did.”

“Oh.”

She’s silent again, staring at her hands like they’re a riddle that she can’t figure out.

“Felicity?”

She huffs. “Look, as much as I hate to admit it, I was wrong.”

“What?” This almost surprises me more than Percy’s confession.

Felicity looks at me again. “I don’t _understand_ what you and Perseus have,” she says. Before I can protest that we don’t have anything, she goes on. “But there is _something_. He makes you happy, doesn’t he?”

That pulls me up short. Does Percy make me happy?

I think about listening to Percy play his lyre, of catching the figs that he threw, how he stayed up with me when my nightmares kept me from sleeping, of when he said he _wanted_ to stay, how he tried to defend me when the hero was here, how he blushes when I compliment him, how patiently he taught Adrian until Adrian could play a song, how he let me tell my story and didn’t hold it against me and even comforted me, how he stayed.

“He does,” I say, surprising myself, but not Felicity.

She nods. “I was wrong when I said that you would save yourself a lot of pain by pushing Percy away. I think you would just hurt yourself, and Perseus, if you do because…he _loves_ you, Monty. And you love him!”

“I don’t—”

“Oh _please_ ,” Felicity says. “Even I can see it! You have nicknames for him! And private jokes! You told Perseus about your curse long before you told me or Adrian. It doesn’t take an expert on mortals to see how in love you are with each other!” She’s laughing at me in disbelief.

“But you said so yourself that I would only lose him in the end!”

“So? You love him, Monty! You’re going to lose him either way, so take your pick: now on bad terms or in a few decades with the chance of a happy life with him?”

I stare at her. “How did you get so wise?”

Felicity gives me a lopsided smile. “I have had a few hundred years to work on it.” 

“Well? What do I do now?”

“You quit being a dumbass and go tell Percy how you really feel.”

I snort but get up. “Where was he going earlier?”

“He’s at the falls with Adrian.”

With that, I take off. I haven’t run this much in a long time but it’s worth it. Because Felicity is right (as usual). Maybe my father was wrong. Maybe I’m not unlovable and maybe trying to find love isn’t a lost cause. Maybe I’m a fool for trying to push away one of the only people that want me. Maybe I need to stop letting the voice in my head that doesn’t belong to me at all—that belongs to Richard and my father—keep telling me that I’m broken for something that I didn’t choose. Maybe I’m not broken at all.

I see them when I get to the falls. Adrian is floating on his back in the lake while Percy sits waist-deep in the water. I approach Percy, making plenty of noise with my steps so that he knows I’m coming. I give him the chance to get up and run or tell me to leave, but he doesn’t.

Even though I despise getting wet and the water comes to my chest where it comes to Percy’s waist, I sit beside him. “Hi, Perce,” I say.

“Hi,” he says, motionless.

“I really want to talk to you,” I say, “about last night.”

Percy makes a face. “Don’t worry. I’m leaving tonight.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

“It would probably be better for both of us if I did.”

“Percy, I’m not _mad_ about last night—”

“Well, maybe I am.”

A pause. “You’re mad at me?”

“No,” Percy huffs. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just…I shouldn’t stay when our feelings for each other are so…different.”

I can’t let him go on like this any longer. “But they aren’t!”

That makes Percy stop and angle his face toward me. “What?”

I huff. “I’m really doing this all wrong. Let me start over.”

“Okay?” Percy says, a small, bemused smile gracing his face.

“Perseus,” I say with all the bravado I can muster, “I am in love with you.”

“What? But last night you said—”

“I was wrong,” I cut him off. “I was scared.” I say that a little too loudly because Adrian raises his head and looks at us. But I think that he’s intentionally giving us space because he just keeps floating. I turn back to Percy. “But I do love you and…I want to be your place, if you’ll still let me.”

“You’re serious?” Percy asks like he doesn’t quite believe me.

“Yes,” I insist. “I’m sorry for what I said last night. I love you. You make me so incredibly happy. I don’t want you to go. Scipio sent you here because we could be good for each other. This _is_ your place, Perce.”

He starts to reach for me but stops, remembering how easily I startle. I appreciate it. I know that I’m still nowhere near being _recovered_ from what happened. Telling Percy and Felicity didn’t just make it all go away. But I think it’s a step in the right direction. And hopefully, I can keep taking those steps.

I do what I’m almost certain won’t make me panic. I take both of Percy’s hands in one of mine. I put my other hand on his cheek. My heart melts a little at the way he leans into my touch. “Can I kiss you?”

“It’s sort of all that I’ve been waiting for for the past two months.”

That makes me laugh, but I still kiss him. It isn’t like any kiss that I’ve had before. Truth be told, I did have many before I was cursed. But those were all hunger and heat, open-mouthed and a little aggressive. Percy—with his everlasting patience—treats me like I’m made of butterfly wings. The kiss is gentle, close-mouthed, no heat or hunger behind it.

Just love. That’s all he wants from me.

Despite the kiss being relatively tame, we kiss for a long time. I almost forgot what it was like to kiss someone and feel something other than fear. But it never goes farther than that. Percy doesn’t press or escalate. It’s just us; him holding my hand, me holding his face.

When we do eventually have to pull apart, I ask: “You’re not still going to leave, are you?”

Percy smiles. “I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
